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SWA WINNER INTERVIEW: The SW King DarkLink77

You were just re-elected as King of System Wars. What plans do you have for your second term?

I plan to give the people more of what they want: me.

More glorious threads, more fantastic posts, more of my forum-defining taste, more amazing ownage, another grand ol’ Hype Thread or two, more fantastic reviews, and another fantastic year of the SWAs. You know, the things that put me on the throne two years in a row. If you’re really lucky, Willy, I might even come back to write for SWM.

Sounds like a good deal. But the higher powers at Gamespot are planning big changes to the board and the website itself. You think you got the bravado to lead System Wars through change? You know how much gamers hate change!

Of course. I led this forum through the change from the old ToU to the new one, so leading through something simple, like a website redesign that will hopefully make the forums less glitchy doesn’t seem all that tough. Oh, no! Posting will work correctly all of the time! Clearly I will be strained by the new responsibilities this will bring as the leader of this forum!

In all seriousness, though, one does not simply lead System Wars. It would be easier to herd cats. It would be less painful than those stupid cattle herding mini-games in Red Dead Redemption. It would be even more awful than playing a Bethesda game without mods.

System Wars was, is, and always will be defined by what we do as a community. It’s defined by the posts we make, the threads we bump, and the discussions we have. It’s defined by the competitions we run, like Best Shooter, The Essential 50, Best Female Game Character, and Best Developer. It’s defined by the users, new and old, who spend their free time here discussing the one thing we all (supposedly, I know I hate everything) love: video games. That’s what makes it a great community. You don’t lead something like that.

As for the rumors of a new ToU… we need one. The old one was too restrictive. The new one is too lax. The old one actually encouraged creative trolling. This one doesn’t. Sure, it’s nice to be able to call the other guy a dumbass without being modded, but being able to type “f*ck” instead of “f***” is not worth what happened to the board as a result.

What are your ideas on how to rectify the Terms of Use?

You know, the ability to call people out on their bullsh!t is pretty good. So that should stay. Be we should be harsher on blatant trolling with no purpose, people who post the same thing over and over and over again and never get involved in actual discussion (not you, Heil, your gimmick is wonderful), we need to identify and ban the alt accounts who do nothing but use proxies as soon as possible, and in general, we just need to hold this forum to a higher standard of trol-, I mean posting, while allowing this place to feel like a “System Wars.” My royal spies also tell me we need more mods, because the ones we have are overworked.

But with all that said, I’d rather have the old ToU than the new one. It’s pretty saddening to look at all of the good users we’ve lost since the new ToU, and it’s just going to keep getting worse if we don’t change something.

Now that you have won the election and become King (again), what do you wish to say to the runner-ups to your throne (freedomfrek and lundy86_4) and all of those loyal System Warriors that voted for you this year?

Well, I think freedomfreak and lundy are really great posters. Hell, I even voted for freedomfreak. They’re good guys, and System Wars is better for having them. So, to you fine gentlemen, congrats. You guys are some of the great ones, and clearly, the rest of System Wars thinks so, too. I hope you keep doing what you do, and I wish you all the best in the coming year.

As for being voted King again… it’s kind of surreal. I’ve only been here for three versions of the SWAs. My first year, I didn’t win anything. Hell, I barely even got nominated. Then the next year, I won King. And now to have won it again… wow. It’s very humbling. So, to all those who voted for me, thank you. I’m glad I’ve added something to your experience on this forum, and I’ll try to keep doing that.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who voted in the Awards this year, and all of the great people who helped. It was a massive undertaking started by those of us who just couldn’t bear to see the Awards die, and while we obviously didn’t pull it off as perfectly as we wanted to, I’m proud of what we put together and of the people I spent the time doing this with. And you can’t deny that we brought the drama. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed making it happen, and I can promise you we’re just getting started, and we’re only going to get better from here. See you next year.